Mobile Interface Demos

Beyond all the new phones at Mobile World Congress this year, there were some really interesting demos of technology that may change the way we interact with mobile devices in general in the future. We’ve already mentioned the graphics power of Nvidia’s long awaited Tegra platform that should appear on both Google’s Android and Windows Mobile in the not to distant future. Beyond processing power, there were some new interfaces demoed at Mobile World Congress in 2009 worth highlighting.

Stantum demonstrated their new multi-touch technology, but what makes it different is that it’s using resistive touch screens, as found in many current mobile phones, GPS units and more.

The TouchPark software solution allows for an unlimited number of touch points, accepts stylus, finger or even a paintbrush as an input device and most importantly, has pressure sensitivity. In a video captured by Engadget, a Stantum representative states that their technology can work with current resistive touch screens, and that the TouchPark framework also has ‘sub-pixel’ resolution, meaning that the accuracy is more refined than the pixel resolution of the screen.

Also on display were some new interface designs by TAT (The Astonishing Tribe). First up is a consumer friendly interface dubbed the “Foldout UI”…

Then there’s an example of an interface that makes use of eye tracking and tilting to provide a virtual 3D experience. As TAT mentions in their description…

Imagine tilting your mobile so you can look around corners and behind objects in the GUI to access additional information. Imagine layered GUIs where pop-up windows really pop up.

There’ll be no shortage of processers able to handle these types of interfaces, either. The Foldout UI was running on the Texas Instruments OMAP 3430 processor (the same processor found in the soon to be released Palm Pre), and Qualcomm has hit the ‘high speed’ mark with it’s 1GHz Snapdragon, currently in the Toshiba TG01 mobile phone.